Canada will be sending one of its astronauts to the moon. Here's what to know about them
The Canadian Space Agency has four active astronauts, three of whom have never been to space. That could soon change in a big way
On Monday, the world will learn the names of the next four astronauts to go to the moon. One of them will be a Canadian, and the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, bypassing the International Space station (400 km up) for a trip almost a thousand times further out, to orbit Earth’s natural satellite.
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The announcement will be made jointly by NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) at 11 a.m. ET Monday, during an event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There will also be a live event at CSA headquarters just outside Montreal. The announcement will be broadcast on NASA’s Youtube channel.
The Artemis 2 mission marks the first journey to the moon by astronauts since the end of the Apollo 17 mission in December of 1972. From 1968 to 1972, 24 people (all white American men) travelled to the moon, and 12 walked on the surface.
Artemis 2 will be similar to the flight of Apollo 8, which sent astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders on humanity’s first trip around the moon. The next mission, Artemis 3, plans to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon, likely near Shackleton Crater at the south pole.
The flights build on the success of Artemis 1, which sent an uncrewed capsule on a 25-day, 2.1-million km journey into lunar orbit and back to Earth, landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast on Mexico on Dec. 11. Artemis 2 does not yet have a launch date, but is expected to fly in late 2024 on what will likely be a mission of about 10 days.
During U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Canada, he wrapped up an address to Parliament with a reference to the Artemis crew that drew cheers and a standing ovation from Canadian politicians.
“We choose to return to the moon together!” Biden said, echoing President John F. Kennedy’s “we choose to go to the moon” speech of 1962 that galvanized the American space effort.
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“Together return to the moon,” he added, “and from there we look forward to Mars and to the limitless possibilities that lie beyond. And here on Earth our children who watch that flight will learn the names of those new pioneers. They’ll be the ones who carry us into the future we hope to build. The Artemis generation. Ladies and gentleman, we’re living in an age of possibilities.”
The CSA lists 10 retired astronauts including Chris Hadfield, Marc Garneau and Roberta Bondar. The four active astronauts are less well known, and only one has been to space before. Here’s what to know about the others.
Canada’s 4 active astronauts
David Saint-Jacques, 53, flew to the International Space Station in 2018 and spent 204 days there.
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Jeremy Hansen, 47, was born in London, Ont., and went to high school in nearby Ingersoll. A colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, he has a bachelor of science in space science from Royal Military College of Canada, and a master of science in physics from the same institute. A CF-18 pilot, he joined the CSA in 2009 and graduated from Astronaut Candidate Training in 2011.
Dr. Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons, 34, is Canada’s only active female astronaut. Born in Calgary, she has an honours bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University, and a PhD in engineering from Britain’s Cambridge University. She joined the CSA in 2017 and completed Astronaut Candidate Training in 2020.
Joshua Kutryk, 41, hails from Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and has master’s degrees in space studies, flight test engineering and defence studies. In an interview with the National Post last year, he shied away from the question of what it would be like to be on a flight to the moon.
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“Of course it’s something that all of us think about,” he said. “But myself personally, it’s way too early to know where this is all going to go. But from a national perspective, it’s something that I’m very proud of, which is Canada’s involvement in the Artemis missions and in the return to the moon.”
He also pointed out that the crew of Artemis 2 will beat Apollo’s records for fastest human travel (39,897 km/h on Apollo 10) and farthest from the Earth (400,171 km on Apollo 13).
“It will be the fastest and the furthest that any human being has ever gone,” he said. “A very, very historical mission [for] three NASA astronauts and one Canadian. And I think that’s really remarkable. After that we step into the bigger Artemis Gateway projects. [Gateway is a planned lunar-orbiting space station.] And we start to see more and more launches, with the first landing planned for 2025.”
Canada’s agreement with NASA guarantees at least one more seat on a future flight for a Canadian astronaut. The three astronauts not chosen for the Artemis 2 mission to orbit the moon might instead one day set foot on that other world.
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